A coroner recommended forestry workers use machines to pile up felled logs instead of doing it manually after a Hawkes Bay forestry worker was killed. Source: The New Zealand Herald
George Kingi Crawford, 44, was crushed between two logs while extracting radiata pine in Whareongaonga Forest, south of Gisborne, in June last year.
Crawford was employed by Mana Logging Limited, which used a method of “bunching” logs, where felled trees are piled together.
In his recent findings Hastings coroner Chris Devonport said the log that crushed Mr Crawford was in a pile of about 20 on a slope, which sat atop other debris and wood.
One of Crawford’s colleagues said he felt the pile moving and his leg being pressed against a log.
As he pulled his leg free he looked up and saw Crawford with his arm outstretched and logs hitting him. Staff rushed to his aid and extracted him from the log that was trapping him, began CPR, and called emergency services. He could not be revived.
Coroner Devonport made a recommendation to harvesting contractors, forestry owners and cable harvesting employers that they use mechanical grapples as the preferred method of log extraction rather than doing it manually.
He said if manual extraction was used then it should only be for logs bunched on flat ground that had been cleared of heavy debris, with bunch heights not to exceed two metres.
The coroner also recommended that consideration be given about the extraction, location and height restrictions of bunched logs.
His recommendations come as the forestry industry comes under fire, with calls for the Government to launch an inquiry into the industry’s shocking accident rate.
Whakatane’s Eramyha Eruera Pairama, 19, died last week after being struck by a tree near Taneatua.
